He had presence of mind enough to snatch a brand from
the fire, which was now very low, and thrust it at the nose of tho
animal, which thereupon made off. . . . In the morning we were not a
little anxious to know how our companions had fared; and this anxiety
was increased upon our tracing the footsteps of the beast in the sand,
in a direction towards the bell tent. The impression was deep and plain,
of a large round foot well furnished with claws. Upon acquainting the
people in the tent with the circumstances of our story, we found that
they had been visited by the same unwelcome guest."
Mr. Andrew Murray, in his work on the Geographical Distribution of
Mammals, gives the Straits of Magellan as the extreme southern limit of
the puma's range, and in discussing the above passage from Byron he
writes: "This reference, however, gives no support to the notion of the
animal alluded to having been a puma. . . . The description of the
footprints clearly shows that the animal could not have been a puma.
None of the cat tribe leave any trace of a claw in their footprints. . .
The dogs, on the other hand, leave a very well-defined claw-mark. . . .
Commodore Byron and his party had therefore suffered a false alarm. The
creature which had disturbed them was, doubtless, one of the harmless
domestic dogs of the natives."
The assurance that the bold hardy adventurer and his men suffered a
false alarm, and were thrown into a great state of excitement at the
appearance of one of the wretched domestic dogs of the Fuegians, with
which they were familiar, comes charmingly, it must be said, from a
closet naturalist, who surveys the world of savage beasts from his
London study.
Pages:
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65